Sunday, June 14, 2015

Carl DeMaio is a California Republican who had a chance to win a house seat in 2014. Even though the race was happening in blue California, it was one of the state’s more conservative districts.

All hopes were dashed when one of DeMaio’s former staffers named Todd Bosnich accused him of sexual harassment in the final weeks of the campaign. He even produced threatening emails which he claimed were sent to him by someone in the DeMaio camp.

Democrats welcomed the scandal and although DeMaio strongly denied the charges, he was defeated by Democrat Scott Peters.

On Friday, the ex-staffer admitted in federal court that he lied when he claimed to have gotten an anonymous email threatening that he would never work again in politics if he revealed things about DeMaio.

Todd Bosnich, 29, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice by lying to the FBI about the email. Until Friday, it was not known publicly that the federal government was investigating the email.

During the campaign, Bosnich had told reporters that he was ”positive” that the email, and others, came from DeMaio or someone close to him.

But in his guilty plea, Bosnich admitted that he sent the email to himself through a dummy account and then took the email to the Peters campaign who turned it over to the San Diego Police Department.

Bosnich’s actions “had the potential to affect a national election,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Phil Halpern. “Mr. Bosnich, for whatever reason, had a great deal of hostility and personal animus toward Mr. DeMaio.”

The email, now known to be fraudulent, was meant to support Bosnich’s allegation that DeMaio had touched him inappropriately and masturbated in front of him.

Now the LA Times is reporting that the staffer Todd Bosnich made the whole thing up and has even admitted his lies to the FBI

Of course CNN broadcast the story and Talking Point Memo got it into the Internet.

A suggestion or four for how this can be stopped in the future:

Republicans, choose your staffers well.

Push to get this piece of garbage jail time.

Make this an issue in the next campaign.

Make sure that any legislation supported by Scott Peters does not pass.